If you don’t master this skill, it will master you. You will never reach your desired future or accomplish vital goals if this one skill isn’t developed.

Everysuccessful individual I know has learned this skill, and utilizes it constantly.

What’s the skill I’m referring to? MANAGING REJECTION.

Our lives are bombarded with moments of rejection (or potential feelings of rejection – perceived or real). We can feel rejected when our team doesn’t accomplish its goals or we haven’t accomplish our personal goals. Defeating this “mind monster” pushes us past the the potential debilitating affect of situations like these:

Someone is gossiping about you= rejection

A great idea you shared with your leader was shot down = rejection

Someone else gets the promotion you were hoping for= rejection

A highly skilled team player of yours quits and takes another job = rejection

Rejection is something we all experience again and again in our lives. Regardless of factors like how much money we make, where we’re from, who our parents are…it is a fact that most of us will experience a hefty dose of rejection during our lives. Curiously, however, it is not the amount of rejection we experience that determines our successes or failures; it’s how we respondto rejection that determines them! The GREAT NEWS for you and I is that overcoming the mind monster of rejection is a skill that you we can develop. It’s like a muscle: the more you use it, the stronger it gets.Consider this: Michael Jordan was so good at basketball because he was born with natural athletic ability. Josh Groban has become a huge star because he was born with an incredible voice. So-and-so down the road has such a successful business because their daddy did all the hard work for them.

Take a minute and think back over your own life to this point. What would you say is the biggest thing you’ve accomplished? What is the thing you’ve done that makes you swell with pride? It might be a child that you raised or mentored. It might be a healthy marriage. It might be a job you landed, or some type of business success. The possibilities are endless, and they absolutely do not need to have anything to do with money or recognition.

Now that you’re picturing that one incredible feat, ask yourself this: Did it come easy? Was it handed to you? Or was it the product of time after time—even when you felt like giving up?

Perseverance is THE key.And, there is light at the end of the tunnel. But also know that the majority of the tunnel is long, dark, and scary. It could be that the only certainty available to you at the moment is the fact that you will persist without exception…that you will find a way where there is no way.

An unintended benefit of rejection is that, once you’ve made it through, it will actually be encouraging when you look back on the experience!

So for everyone out there currently going through rejection of one type or another—be encouraged. Keep going! You have the ability to win.